Hello! So, we're back to myth-arc for tonight. I'm going to forgo the preamble, because yeah, there was a LOT going on in tonights episode and some of it I'm a little confused about. Which will become apparent...

EPISODE TIME!

We start in Saudi Arabia where people are chillaxing in a tent until Crowley arrives.... and we find out that one of his soul contracts is with an archeologist type person, who is brokering a trade - his soul back, for the Horn of Joshua. It works! Only, Crowley still kills him, because he can, and why not? Then he kills all the nice guys with guns in the rest of the tent - which seems execessive, but then, I guess Crowley IS a demon.

Back in the states, Crowley calls Dean to then make a deal with him and Sam, meanwhile, demons are after him!

Off in another part of the world, Amara is getting healed by a mysterious witch, and then the camera pans up and it's ROWENA!! That came as a surprise to me, because I never read the names of the actors or guest stars, but apparently my friends do, and they were disappointed that the reveal was spoiled a minute before it happened. I told them that they should go back in time and not learn to read until they were nine, so that it's easier for them to NOT read things. (That's what I'm attributing it to, but that's actually probably false, the truth is that I can only see whatever I'm looking at and not things in the periphery. Basically, it's constantly like that video where if you count how many times they dribble the ball, you miss the bear walking across the basketball court... only with everything.)

Amara still calls Crowley "Uncle Crowley" and that's pretty cute. Rowena is siding with Amara because she has an "ax to grind" with Lucifer, re: the killing of her. We find out that she had a fail-safe spell and was revived shortly after her death and escaped. We don't know how she found Amara, but Rowena is alligning herself with the person she deems to be the strongest player in the fight - in the hopes that it will ensure her own survival.

Sam and Dean meet Crowley to negotiate for the Horn of Joshua. Sam knows all about it's history, which is sexy... mmm educated men. But, there's always an "If" with Crowley, and in this case he wants them to exercise Lucifer out of Cas and send him back to the cage - it's interesting to me that Crowley actually specifies that he wants him OUT of Castiel, I would think that Crowley would just want him in the cage and not care about Cas. Sam points out that they need the Book of the Damned AND Rowena in order to do that, and Crowley is like "well, Rowena is dead." Sucks to be them!

Meanwhile, in heaven, Lucifer is there! Scaring poor angels named Jophial (sp?) and disintigrating them. I do like how Lucifer disintigrated him instead of exploding BLOOD EVERYWHERE style, because to me that deliniates angel on earth vs. angel in heaven.

Lucifer meets with the angels, now, seemingly leaderless, to convince them to support him in his fight against Amara...and basically make him the new God. There's a lot of great things in this scene - mostly Misha's acting. But I love the line of "You exploded Jophial!" "Did I? Or did Jophial explode himself?" Then Misha gives a speech detailing how absolutely horrible mankind is, and yet God gives them second/third/forth chances all the time... and that the campaign calling Lucifer evil-incarnate was just marketing, because if God wanted to convince them he was the super-saver, he needed a super villian. Lucifer tells them about how he locked away the Darkness the first time and that God never talked about THAT.

Meanwhile, back on earth, Sam, Dean, and Crowley are arguing about order of operations. Crowley wants them to get rid of Lucifer and THEN Amara, Sam and Dean argue that they need Lucifer in order to take down Amara, so it has to be Amara and then Lucifer... and Dean accuses Crowley of putting his ego before the mission, and that Crowley should be smarter than that (go Dean!)

But then Dean says that they'll exercise Lucifer first, get him to choose a vessel other than Cas, and then go after Amara, and THEN put Lucifer in the cage. This leads to an argument with Sam, who points out that Cas' vessel is really strong, because "it's" held Cas all these years... then Dean takes offence at Sam referring to Cas as "it" - which means, given that I doubt Dean was thinking about Jimmy, that Dean very much associates Cas' vessel with Cas.

Back with Amara and Rowena - Amara senses no kindness in Rowena and wonders why she's helping. Rowena reitates her desire for revenge on Lucifer and her desire for survival, given that the Winchesters said Amara=destruction. Amara says the Winchesters are right, but she views it more as "renovation." Rowena also tries to manipulate Amara into an emotional connection with her, but falls short of being successful there.

Lucifer is wrapping up his speech in heaven - and tells one angel "he who hesitates disintigrates" - which I also liked.

Did anyone else think that Castiel's hair in heaven looked like a too-dark bad dye job? Was it weird lighting or legit a bad dye job? Did Lucifer not know where Castiel got his hair done and he accidentally went to the wrong salon?!

Amara decides to test her power and sends a black cloud of general disruption up to heaven. It makes lighting storms on earth too, and Dean is can sense it's her. Lucifer uses it to further scare the angels into letting him lead - "god knows what's next" and then realizes his word choice and reminds them "god doesn't care."

Rowena, meanwhile, is spying on the Winchesters for Amara and sees that they're talking to Crowley about using the Horn of Joshua. Having been really actually terrified by Amara's amount of power, Rowena seems to have rethought her attempted allegiance, and she lies to Amara and tells her that the Winchesters aren't planning anything.

Meanwhile, Sam, Dean, and Crowley are STILL arguing, but are interrupted by Rowena sending them a message that she's not actually dead.

So, it's time to work together! Woo. We all know this isn't going to work, but they're going to give it a go!

They summon Lucifer and then trap him, then Dean attempts to call Castiel to the surface with another spell in order to get him to eject Lucifer. It fails though, he just doesn't get enough time at all with Cas - he barely has enough time to say more than his name. When that fails, Crowley decides to give an attempt and he possesses Castiel's vessel as well (the same way he got Sam to eject Gadreel.)

This choice was interesting to me, because again, it's a HIGH risk move, which seems a huge thing for Crowley to do for CAS... it's almost as if he cares for him! It made me like Crowley a little.

Inside Castiel's head, we find that Lucifer has him locked up in a version of the bunker's kitchen watching TV that continually just tells him it's okay (or so it seems). Crowley tries to talk to Cas, but he's in that state that children get in when they've watched too much TV and their little brains have liquified. Cas barely even seems effected by the fact that Dean just tried to talk to him, and he even admits that Dean might have a more objective view on the situation (unless i heard that line wrong), but Cas doesn't seem at all interested in doing anything other than continuing to watch TV until the battle is over.

Meanwhile, Lucifer in Nick-outfit shows up and starts kicking Crowley's ass. Crowley write's on his own forehead in order to get Sam and Dean to save him by exercising him, which works! Cas hears the exercism, but again, doesn't seem overly effected.

By then, the warding has failed and the fire goes out. (Or, I should mention that Rowena this whole time has been hiding around the corner in order to not give away to Lucifer that she's alive... I'll just assume she has a spell that masks all other aspects of her presence too - because you'd think an angel as powerful as Lucifer would know she was RIGHT THERE.

Crowley gets the hell out of dodge. Lucifer goes about a slow death for the Winchester's, which is a mistake because it allows time for Amara to storm the door. My friend thought maybe Amara came because DEAN was in pain, but Amara tells us that she was trailing Rowena.

Lucifer tries the horn, but it has no effect and is then used up. Amara grabs Lucifer and promises him a "nice long chat"... before she takes off though, Dean calls out for Cas again and Amara gives him a weird look... I wonder if she's confused by why he's calling for Cas and not her? Maybe once again, love for family can break the spell she seems to have over Dean?! Time will tell! But in the meantime, Amara kidnaps Lucifer(and therefore also Cas).

Then we come back from commercial. Dean is picking himself off the floor? I'm confused... and there are a lot of empty bears (but not enough to put Dean on the floor) and Sam hands him another one. And they discuss the day's events. They think that maybe if the weapon has to be wielded by "God's chosen", Lucifer doesn't count because he was exiled.

Sam also apologizes for not supporting Dean's plan to rescue Cas first. Dean forgives him by saying that they both had promised to "swear off getting in the way when one person makes a choice the other doesn't agree with."... which, what? What does that mean? And then Sam seems to reluctantly agree with that sentiment like maybe he thought that was an empty promise... but then Dean is like, so let's "find that idiot and bring him home." So... WHAT? I'm so confused as to what they swore off and whether they swore off it with each other or Cas, and whether it was an empty promise or a real one, and whether they're following it with Cas or not following it. SO CONFUSED.

Lucifer, meanwhile, is trying to talk his way out of being murd-didly-urdered, by trying to talk Amara into a team-up to take down God. Amara isn't going to trust her "nephew" again, because she trusted him before and it got her trapped for eons. She then declares that she's going to use God's "first son" (meaning Lucifer) to lure God to her, because Lucifer is something that God cares about. So, A)According to Gabriel, Lucifer is AT HIGHEST God's SECOND son... because Dean=Michael ("the older brother") and Sam=Lucifer ("the younger brother"... "so on earth as it is in heaven.") So, either Gabriel was lying or Amara is wrong, and it might be the latter because B)Did no one ever TELL Amara about how God kicked Lucifer out of heaven? DId no one give her a single theology lesson while she was a kid? Because Lucifer tries to tell Amara that her plan won't work, but she doesn't seem to listen at all. So... yeah, the plan is apparently to torture Lucifer until God makes her stop. Yay. Fun times for Lucifer and Cas.

Anyway, that's the episode! It's basically 100% too much plot for one episode... like, really? Could we not divide this up a little? Though, I absolutely adored last week's episode, so I wouldn't want it to change at all... and Safe House was really cool too, because I also love a good Rufus/Bobby episode... but yeah, WAY too much going on in this episode... it didn't leave me much room for dick jokes, you know?

So, usually I tell you not to correct me, but if anyone wants to shed light on that conversation that I didn't understand at all - please do! Just make sure that five other people haven't also accurately done so in a comment before you (unless you disagree with their interpretation and want to give me yours - that's totally fair.)

Sorry I wasn't as hilarious this week as other times. I feel like this has just been more of a summary than a drunken stupid-fest. But...yeah... I dunno? SO MUCH PLOT and then CONFUSED.

It's weird that after this they seem to be doing another MOTW (judging solely based on preview), this seemed like such a run-up to the final episodes that it will be a tone shift to then do something NOT related to rescuing Cas (which I still think is their number 1 priority.)